Tuesday, 31 January 2017

On
the 4th June 1932 a pair of bored policemen stopped and searched a 25 year old
working man, Angelo Sbardellotto, in the Piazza Venezia in Rome simply because
they didn’t like the look of his face. In one of his pockets they found a Swiss
passport, a circumstance they found vaguely suspicious. As they continued their
search through his other pockets they found first a pistol, further fuelling
their mistrust, and then, abolishing suspicion in an instant and replacing it
with cast iron certainty, not one but two unexploded bombs. Sbardellotto was taken to police headquarters
where fists, boots and truncheons soon got him to reveal that he was planning
to assassinate no less a person than il duce, Mussolini himself, and the names
and addresses of his accomplices. During his two day trial, which started on
the 11th June and inevitably resulted in a guilty verdict, journalists remarked
particularly on his simian appearance, his low forehead and his ‘surly and
sinister’ looks. Sentencing was deferred to a Special Tribunal which sat on the
16th June and ordered the death penalty for the failed assassin. At dawn the
following day at Bretta Fort in Rome he was shot in the back by a platoon of
Militia. His last words before receiving a fusillade between the shoulder blades
were ‘Long live Anarchy!’ One of those
named in Sbardellotto’s blood spattered confession as soliciting and funding
the assassination attempt was a certain Emidio Recchioni, a respectable 68 year
old living in London and running an Italian delicatessen at 37 Old Compton
Street in Soho. The Fascist authorities
were unable to act against a British passport holding ex patriate but word of
Recchioni’s supposed involvement in the Mussolini plot was leaked to the press
and on the 11th November the Daily Telegraph printed a story naming him.
Further stories followed and in June 1933 an outraged Recchioni sued the Daily
Telegraph for libel. The Gloucester Citizen of Tuesday 04 July 1933 tells the full story:

ANTI-FASCIST
PLOT ECHO LORD CAMROSE SUED FOR LIBEL

A plot to
assassinate Mussolini led to a libel suit against Lord Camrose in the King's
Bench Division today. The plaintiff was Mr. Emilio Recchioni, of Old
Compton-street, London, W.1, and he sued Lord Camrose, as representing the Daily
Telegraph, in respect of certain statements which appeared in that newspaper.
Mr. Maurice Healy, K.C., for Mr. Recchioni, said that last year, a man named Sbardelotto
was arrested in Rome. He was supposed to have been found lurking with bombs to
throw at Signor Mussolini. He was condemned to death and executed. Last November
the 11 the Daily Telegraph published a message from its own correspondent in
Rome headed “Anti-Fascists in London." It referred to a confession by Sbardelotto
and added “according to this the plot matured in Brussels and Paris, while the
money (about £35) was provided through the agency of a man named Recchioni, who
is said to be a prominent member of a group of anti-Fascists in London." Mr
Healey said that the defence was that these statements did not refer to the
plaintiff, and that the words did not bear the meaning Mr. Recchioni attached
to them.

Not
Ashamed To Be Anti-Fascist Mr. Recchioni had lived in
this country for many years, and, latterly, had become naturalised. He was
managing director of the Italian Produce Co., of Soho, and the Carrara Marble
and Granite Company. Mr. Healy said that there would be evidence that Mr. Recchioni's
family were the only bearers of that name in London. "The truth is," he
added, "that Mr. Recchioni is a strong anti-Fascist, and is not ashamed
it." But it was one thing to be an opponent of a particular political
party, and quite another thing support it by methods which were against the
laws of God and man and were despised by all decent people.

King Bomba - Recchioni's legendary deli

Black
Looks The moment the article
appeared, Mr. Recchioni began to receive ‘black looks’ from everyone. Things
were scrawled on the shutters of his shop, there were insulting remarks, people
passing him the street turned their heads away, and when he went to a cinema
people turned and said, “What cheek for a man like that to come in here."
Business people wrote asking that his accounts should closed, money was sent
back from charities to which he had subscribed, and finally the Italian Chamber
of Commerce here wrote him for an explanation. Indignant at the treatment he had
received Mr. Recchioni resigned from the Chamber, but that did not prevent them
from solemnly expelling him from membership.

Obscure
Paragraph On June 27. in the Daily
Telegraph, an 'obscure paragraph’ appeared to the effect that "Recchioni,
whose name was mentioned in connection with the plot against Mussolini, had
been excluded from membership of the Italian Colony in London.” If the libel had appeared in certain journals
a great deal of harm might not have been done, but the Daily Telegraph was a
serious organ of public opinion, and shunned sensationalism. Yet, as far he was
aware, it had not published a single word to correct the mischief. Mr. J. G. Trapnell, K.C., cross-examining Mr
Recchioni : “Have you described the Fascists' methods as ‘Fascist rascality’?” -
It is a fact. They are against freedom. I have taken this action against the
Daily Telegraph because it is a free paper in a free country, Mr. Recchioni
added. No evidence was called for the defence. The jury returned a verdict for
Mr. Recchioni, with damages at £1,750.

Emidio Recchioni photographed in the prime of life

£1750
was a substantial amount in the 1930’s and the supposedly defamed shopkeeper
must have been particularly pleased with the outcome of the trial given that
every single word in the article was true. The mild mannered Italian salami
seller was not merely a prominent anti fascist, he was a committed anarchist who,
contrary to what his counsel had said in court, was perfectly willing to
support his cause “by methods which were against the laws of God and man and
were despised by all decent people.” Quite why the Daily Telegraph failed to
put up any defence remained a mystery until the files on the case in the
national archive were opened in the late 1990’s. These revealed that when the
Telegraph approached Special Branch for assistance before the case reached
court the Home Secretary and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner blocked any
attempts to help the newspaper. The fragile coalition National Government was
in power and they were concerned about the possible political fallout from
revelations that Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s socialist past had involved a
potentially embarrassing friendship with an Italian Anarchist. A newspaper
search would have given the Telegraph’s barrister something to counter the barefaced
lies of Signor Recchioni who was certainly no novice when it came to organising
assassination attempts. For example, the
Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser reported on Tuesday 10
July 1894:

Rome, Monday. It
is announced from Ancona that the police have succeeded arresting a well known
Anarchist named Recchioni on suspicion of being an accomplice of the man Lega,
who made the attempt on the life of Signor Crispi. Two other Anarchists, also
believed to be accomplices, are still at liberty.

On
June 16th 1894 the Italian Prime Minister had been returning home from lunch on
the Via Gregoriani in Rome when 26 year old Paolo Lega had tried to shoot him
as he sat his carriage. The pistol misfired and before Lega had time to draw
and aim his second pistol the coachman had jumped on him causing a second shot
to fire wide. Lega was tried and received a prison sentence of 20 years and 17
days. Recchioni and two others were arrested and tried as accomplices but
acquitted on 30th November 1895. Despite the acquittal two days later Recchioni
was put under house arrest before being transferred to the prison colony on the
Tremiti islands.

Emidio
Recchioni was born in Russi, 8 miles southwest of Ravenna in 1864. He had
worked on the railways and fallen under the influence of older anarchist
colleagues. He became an activist who was regarded by the police as the
anarchists “most active and influential propagandist.” He worked on several
anarchist newspapers using the pen names of Rastignac and Nemo. He spent
several spells in prison and in 1899 he left Italy and moved to London where he
worked as a shop assistant, coal merchant and wine seller. In 1909 he opened
his famous Italian grocery in Old Compton Street, King Bomba where his clients
availed themselves of such exotica as tinned tomatoes, olive oil, salami,
parmesan, prosciutto and torrone and later diversified into importing marble
and granite from Carrara. The profits from his business enterprises went into
financing anarchist activities. He married in 1911 and had two children, Vera
and Vero, his son, a friend of George Orwell, later anglicised his name to
Vernon Richards and became a well known left wing writer. The family lived above the delicatessen and the
flat above the shop was also the centre of a vigorous anti fascist movement
which used a masonic lodge I Druidi as a cover for their activities. These most
definitely included violent resistance to the Italian fascists. The fascists
responded in kind – following the Daily Telegraph story two thuggish looking
fascist foot soldiers appeared at King Bomba and threatened Recchioni with a firing
squad a la Sbardellotto. The indomitable old anarchist produced a pistol and promised
them a bullet each beneath their Neanderthal brow ridge if they didn’t quit his
premises; they quit.

Recchioni
was involved in various other attempts to assassinate Mussolini, financing the
entry into Italy of a hired assassin to kill the dictator, plotting an attack
in Geneva with Camillo Berneri and when that failed coming up with another plan
to bomb, by plane, il duce’s villa in Rome. The plots were as ingenious and
unsuccessful as the various CIA conspiracies to murder Castro. In 1933
Recchioni developed cancer of the throat and in 1934 he went to Paris to
undergo an operation. He died in the operating theatre at the hospital of Neuilly-sur-Seine
on the 31st of March. His body was brought back to London by his family. The
inscription on his tomb at Kensal Green reads: ‘Only a handful of earth and
ashes, but impregnated with the spirit of a man who lived, suffered, and
deserved well of mankind. He knew no fatherland but the world, no family but
the human race, no religion but love. No tomb can prison his soul. From such
rare spirits must spring the roots of a society worthy of memory in which life
will be worth living.’